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I mean, it wasn't good either, but it certainly hasn't deserved the rollicking it's gotten from this group. It's a perfectly serviceable superhero comic, with really rather excellent artwork, and it should also be given some props for introducing some fresh characters to the stale old DCU, even though one of them is pretty much a rip-off of an old character, and, being made of garbage, can hardly be described as fresh! Hahahaha, I am hilarious.

The first story, featuring the more established character of Lobo is probably the least of the three, the first page tries to be a shock, but any fool knows Lobo can heal from any wound faster than even Wolverine, so it was entirely predictable. But at least it looked good.

Garbageman (I keep thinking of Frank Reynolds from It's Always Sunny in his wrestling persona as 'The Trashman', now that would be a comic, eating trash, throwing bins at hoboes), is as I said a rip-off of Swamp Thing, but considering DC aren't allowed to use ol'Swampy, it might be a good thing that they've got a copy lying around, and one that isn't too laded down with crazy Alan Moore concepts. It's a horribly basic origin story, full of Bruce Banner angst. But again, at least it looked good.

Tanga. by Kevin Maguire is my favourite of the stories, because it actually is something different, actually is something 'weird', the story of a lone space wanderer talking to herself, it has a nice sense of humour (something Maguire picked up from JM DeMatteis perhaps?) and I'm actually intrigued as to what Tanga will get up to next. And of course, it looked good.

So yeah, Weird Worlds isn't really that weird, it should probably be called 'Mundane Worlds', but in a comics market with Project Superpowers and JMS' Superman stinking up the shelves, some perspective is needed, this isn't the worst thing ever, it's just... there.

Art - As my refrain went, 'it looked good', each story in this anthology contained some rather excellent artwork. Lobo was drawn by Jerry Ordway, an artist I don't normally like, coming off as a half-baked cross between Byrne and Perez, but this was the best I have seen his artwork, perhaps it was because he wasn't drawing humans, but it looked good. Aaron Lopresti is an artist I never really associated with top-drawer art, mainly doing DC house style stuff on Justice League or whatever, that while good, doesn't blow your mind, but he really upped his game here, channelling some Will Eisner in his titles, and really putting his mark on the muck-monster, Garbageman really looks great. Kevin Maguire is of course a master of facial expressions, and in a story consisting of someone having a conversation with themselves, his skills are put to good use. The colours of Rosemary Cheetham (someone who I've met, name-dropper!) are also good here, as she has to do a lot of backgrounds. So yeah, the art here was decent, certainly bumping up the grade a few notches.

Best Line - Umm... er... 'Well, hellloooo! At long last! Sweet Conversation!'

Sometime in the future, the UN sends weapons inspector Nathan Kane to a space station above Jupiter, where an exploratory team has made an alarming and ominous discovery: beneath the icy exterior of the planet's ocean moon, Europa, are coffins containing members of a sleeping alien race and guns capable of destroying an entire planet. As Kane and the station crew investigate, they are threatened by the sinister representative of a powerful software conglomerate seeking to exploit the discovery for its own purposes. Writer Ellis is at his best with character-based sf in which an iconoclastic protagonist is injected into an intriguing, futuristic premise, as in the cult favorite Transmetropolitan. Ocean lacks Transmet's verve and attitude, even though Kane is a resourceful badass like Transmet's Spider Jerusalem (classier, however; think Samuel L. Jackson for the movie), but is still a solid, provocative yarn that, emphasizing concept and character rather than action and heroics, and greatly aided by Chris Sprouse's lucid art, comes off rather like an ambitious, big-budget sf film.

john lewis hawk wrote:Sometime in the future, the UN sends weapons inspector Nathan Kane to a space station above Jupiter, where an exploratory team has made an alarming and ominous discovery: beneath the icy exterior of the planet's ocean moon, Europa, are coffins containing members of a sleeping alien race and guns capable of destroying an entire planet. As Kane and the station crew investigate, they are threatened by the sinister representative of a powerful software conglomerate seeking to exploit the discovery for its own purposes. Writer Ellis is at his best with character-based sf in which an iconoclastic protagonist is injected into an intriguing, futuristic premise, as in the cult favorite Transmetropolitan. Ocean lacks Transmet's verve and attitude, even though Kane is a resourceful badass like Transmet's Spider Jerusalem (classier, however; think Samuel L. Jackson for the movie), but is still a solid, provocative yarn that, emphasizing concept and character rather than action and heroics, and greatly aided by Chris Sprouse's lucid art, comes off rather like an ambitious, big-budget sf film.

Ocean is what it looks like when Warren Ellis phones it in, which is about 57.3% of his career output.